Washington: A Life

Washington was sufficiently alarmed by Stephen’s election bid that, uncharacteristically, he stooped to an unscrupulous stratagem to win. The episode shows that at twenty-nine he still hadn’t learned to curb his more assertive impulses. He urged the sheriff who oversaw the election, Captain Van Swearingen, to favor his candidacy with a blatantly unfair tactic. Because there was no secret ballot and people openly voiced their votes, it was hugely advantageous for candidates if the first voters favored them, stimulating a bandwagon effect. While disclaiming that he was doing this, Washington planted the idea in the sheriff ’s mind: “I hope and indeed make no doubt that you will contribute your aid towards shutting [Stephen] out of the public trust he is seeking.” Then Washington suggested that if pro- Washington and Mercer voters were “hurried in at the first of the poll, it might be an advantage. But as sheriff, I know you ca

Washington’s trick seemed to work like a charm: of the first fifteen people to a

In mid-May 1761, about the time of this election, Washington came down with a “violent cold” and intermittent fever that he couldn’t shake despite frequent doctor visits and doses of dried bark from the cinchona tree, called Jesuit’s or Peruvian bark, then used to treat malaria. The disease was so widespread in Virginia that colonists spoke darkly of the “intermittent months” of late summer and early fall when epidemics grew commonplace. In late July Washington despaired of getting any useful advice from Virginia doctors, telling an English friend, “I have found so little benefit from any advice yet received that I am more than half of the mind to take a trip to England for the recovery of that invaluable blessing—health.”10

In August Washington sought the therapeutic powers of the mineral waters at Berkeley Springs, where he had gone with his consumptive brother Lawrence. By this point Washington had likely assumed the classic look of a malaria victim: pale face with pinched features and dark circles beneath the eyes. At this uncouth spa, he found 250 men and women “full of all ma

No sooner had Washington rebounded from his illness than he had to bury his half brother Augustine, who at forty-one perpetuated the mournful tradition of Washington men dying young. Augustine had never been as close to George as Lawrence had been, but he had always written warmly to his younger half brother. Although he had suffered terribly from gout for years and had traveled to England in a vain quest to regain his health, Augustine had reassured George two years earlier that “I am at this time in a better state of health than I have been for the last seven years” and that he hoped to visit Mount Vernon in warm weather “such as will suit my gouty joints.”13 The early deaths of his father and two older half brothers, none of whom reached fifty, could only have heightened Washington’s already considerable sense of mortality after he celebrated his thirtieth birthday.

In October 1762 Washington became a vestryman of Truro Parish, a post he held for twenty-two years. The twelve-man vestry oversaw the temporal affairs of the church at Pohick, which formed part of the Anglican, or “established,” Church. During the next decade Washington performed standard vestry duties, such as helping to pay the minister, balance the church budget, choose a site for a new church, scrutinize its construction, and select furnishings for the communion table. When the new church was completed, he bought two pews and contributed funds to buy gold leaf for religious inscriptions emblazoned across the altarpiece. Washington also served three terms as churchwarden, a post in which he helped to care for poor people and orphans. Because Mount Vernon sprawled into Fairfax Parish as well, Washington bought another pew at Christ Church in Alexandria and joined the vestry there too. Washington’s extensive church activities schooled him in self-government and provided him with plenty of administrative experience.

Many mysteries have surrounded George Washington’s religious beliefs. A pair of notable acquaintances raised questions about his faith. Thomas Jefferson once remarked cynically that Washington “has divines [ministers] constantly about him because he thinks it right to keep up appearances but is an unbeliever.”14 Jefferson contended that when Washington stepped down as president, a group of clergy-men presented him with a list of requests to bolster public faith in Christianity; they noted he had refrained from public endorsements of the tenets of Christianity and beseeched him to declare openly his beliefs. According to Jefferson, “the old fox was too cu

From family recollections, it seems indisputable that Washington grew up in a household steeped in piety. Mary Ball Washington was extremely devout and did not hesitate to invoke the aid of Jesus. “She was in the habit of repairing every day to a secluded spot, formed by rocks and trees near to her dwelling, where, abstracted from the world and worldly things, she communed with her Creator in humiliation and prayer,” Washington’s adopted grandson wrote.17

A stalwart member of two congregations, Washington attended church throughout his life and devoted substantial time to church activities. His major rites of passage—baptism, marriage, burial—all took place within the fold of the church. What has mystified posterity and puzzled some of his contemporaries was that Washington’s church attendance was irregular; that he recited prayers standing instead of kneeling; that, unlike Martha, he never took communion; and that he almost never referred to Jesus Christ, preferring such vague locutions as “Providence,” “Destiny,” the “Author of our Being,” or simply “Heaven.” Outwardly at least, his Christianity seemed rational, shorn of mysteries and miracles, and nowhere did he directly affirm the divinity of Jesus Christ.